A Photographic Journey Along The Coasts Of Europe

by Michael Backes

What one should do: Travel all the way around Europe's coasts. Not with the finger on the map. For real. With a car, always along the coastline. A nice starting point could be Istanbul for example and from there, one could simply drive clockwise along the shore all the way up to Murmansk, with a little detour around Great Britain and Ireland. Then a quick trip half around the Black Sea, now counterclockwise back to the Bosphorus to finish things up. And after that, if one still has the itch, there are all the other European islands (Corsica, Iceland, Malta, Svalbard, Crete and so on) to take care of.

Well, just for the fun of it, I have embarked on this journey - and the pictures will be posted here every other day.

The Amalfi Coast stretches from Salerno to Positano. A narrow and windy road with heavy traffic follows the coastline. And on that road, you have all the time in the world to enjoy the marvelous views, because you’re stuck in traffic anyway.

I could have spent lots of time in Salerno, but time is short on this journey. So I’ve limited myself to the harbour, a few sketchy cityscapes and a surfer. The last shot shows the old hermitage on Monte San Liberatore.

Maratea has 44 small churches and the fifth biggest Jesus in the world. The town is spread out all over the hills around here, but I only visited the marina. That’s why I couldn’t take pictures of all 44 churches, but Giga-Jesus has managed to be in many of the shots.